Gemalto delivers secure e-healthcare solution to hospital in US

Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, is working with LifeMed ID to provide a robust e-healthcare solution that securely authenticates patients' identities at Maine's Mid Coast Hospital.

The solution digitally stores and verifies identification credentials enabling secure access to patients' unique electronic medical records (EMRs). Gemalto's advanced Sealys MultiApp ID smart cards, in collaboration with LifeMed ID's SecureReg solution, enables Maine's Mid Coast Hospital to safeguard patient medical information by authenticating the identity of the patient to reduce administrative time, cost and paperwork, improving the overall quality of care.

The new system gives Mid Coast Hospital an end-to-end, secure authentication infrastructure across disparate groups within the healthcare landscape for advancements in e-health. Assigning various degrees of data access based on an individual's role [1] ensures the confidentiality and validity of the patient's identity and information. Today, up to 15% of medical records contain errors [2], resulting in a crucial need to improve the reliability of medical data; the overall solution reinforces the integrity of the data of EMRs for prescriptions while working to reduce the rate of healthcare fraud.

With US healthcare expenses reaching $2.6 trillion in 2010 [3], public and private health service organisations are looking to e-health suppliers to design solutions that help modernise the current system in areas of security and patient identity. Gemalto/LifeMed ID's technology enables these organisations to reduce costs associated with programme inefficiencies, improving the quality of patient care and satisfaction.

John Stoy, CIO at Mid Coast Hospital, said: "Our vision is to seamlessly connect and synchronise patient data across our EMR systems, streamline registration processes, eliminate duplicate records, reduce billing errors, and improve patient satisfaction throughout the care continuum. We choose to leverage proven technology with Gemalto smart cards and LifeMed ID's SecureReg patient identity suite of software products."

"Gemalto's digital security expertise of protecting data, coupled with their experience in identity verification, were quintessential reasons for choosing to implement their smart card technology into LifeMed ID's patient identity solution," said David Batchelor, CEO of LifeMed ID. "Working together, we are bringing innovative and secure patient identity solutions that eliminate duplicate records, diminishe fraud and decrease administrative costs in the healthcare ecosystem in the United States."

"With over 30 years' experience, we are at the forefront of smart card advancements and personal identification worldwide," said Neville Pattinson, SVP government programmes for Gemalto North America. "Today, our smart cards, software and services are being used to modernise logical access of sensitive information in numerous areas from healthcare to government security."